Just a quick one. I’ve been offline while buying and installing a new computer and when I got back here, font sizes and other things had changed.

I don’t like those changes (YMMV) and I was wondering if there are any plans in regard to giving us users a bit more control over formatting, also in the way of controlling at least a bit of what users I’m sharing pages with get to see at first glance?

In short, if I decrease the screen font size by one in FF, the page looks almost like it used to and now it is just aesthetically displeasing to look at. One example: Text size of links in tables is smaller than text size in normal notes. If you mix both the way I have, it’s definitely jarring to look at.

I have no idea who implemented these changes but I do have this to say: there has been an incredible amount written on the use of fonts and font styles as well as spacing of lines etc. on web pages and the odd mix Backpack is showing me now was definitely NOT in any of those books. The changes do look decidedly amateurish, sorry to say.

This comes from one single user who likes his pages nice and neat, and nice and neat they aren’t anymore! Many users here invest quite a lot of time in laying out their pages with great care, using all kinds of tricks to make things look neat and presentable (across most browsers and systems) and a single (unannounced?) size change can screw up things massively for those users. Please do think about that as well when just flicking a switch and basically forcing those things down the customers’ throats by default. I used off-site images and a whole bag of tricks to make some pages look presentable and the font changes blew those pages to bits. I know, I could have stuck with the defaults … my fault … but still. A warning could have been more than helpful.

Again, if my new PC setup is at fault, ignore my post.
If not, please consider giving us a bit more control.

P.S.: I recall reading around here that one could embed style commands to control the display of elements. I simply can’t find that post/those posts anymore. Are there a bit more detailed instructions anywhere?

Here’s a link to a small screenshot (of what it looks like on my FF 3 setup):

http://www.deus62.com/linkto/huh.jpg

The “Change” in the “This page is shared” menu disappears.
The notes etc. font is too big!
Links font size is too small when compared to the notes etc. font size.
Spacing between dividers, notes, etc. is way off!
Hierarchy is pretty much non-existant.
etc.

BTW: It looks identical on an IE which I used for the first time to make an identical screenshot.

Safari for Win makes things look better, somewhat.

Is it me or have the changes severely effected Backpack pages?

It’s probably me, but I wouldn’t know how/why. All my other web projects are 100% unchanged.

Looks like you have a small monitor…

I have a 1440×900 17” monitor and Backpack looks fine for me on Mac FF3. Of course, I also use Stylish to tweak it a little. But even the default looks okay.

I’m running at 1280*1024.
I think at that resolution the fonts are too clumsy now.
When was there actually a change?

I don’t think anything have changed, at least I haven’t noticed it. I think you might have some basic font missing (from the quick look at Backpack’s CSS, it seems that there is Lucida Grande, Verdana and Helvetica being used).... or maybe bad font-related settings in browser or system? Although I can’t imagine what could be set wrongly, nor how could such a basic font be missing, I’d search for a problem there.

And about the styling possibilities …. I think it’s obvious from Textile Reference

I’ve been seeing the same thing as deus62, regardless of browser window size, for about a month or so now. This has been reported a number of times.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this?
No changes at my end and I don’t even know if it’s Backpack or my system.
No matter what, it’s really souring my Backpack experience.

Appears it MAY be on your end. Did you check your system fonts? Are you missing any of the fonts Backpack is using, per Jan’s post above?

Considering the fact that it is doing it in both FF and IE, it sounds like it is either a missing font on your computer, or possibly the font size you have set up on the machine. Check to see if you are using something other than the standard font size by right-clicking on your desktop and then Settings at the bottom. (That’s in XP; if Vista, I think it is Appearance).

I run Windows XP Pro on my desktop and Vista Ultimate on my notebook, and I have not noticed any change at all in font size. A few other annoyances, I’ll admit, but the font size is OK.

Good luck!

Jim

@JMac

Thanks for your reply. Customer service is also on it but so far … no luck.

I checked everything that was recommended and tried again with a clean install on a completely different PC (quad core instead of dual, different graphics card, etc. Same result.

What I have:
A Windows Vista 64bit system with all updates and service pack(s).

What I’ve tried (to narrow the problem down):

a) I checked, rechecked and triple-checked (even with reinstalls) that I have all browsers running with not the slightest thing tweaked from standard settings. The browsers are running the way they came “off the shelf”!

b) I checked desktop display issues like dpi setting for font-display (96dpi) and all resolutions.

c) I checked the system fonts (all there and displaying nicely).

d) I reinstalled and/or tried various combinations.

No matter what, I end up with the same problem … an ugly Backpack display.

What baffles me:
I run nearly 20 websites of my own and have a load of others in my feeds and/or browser(s) and not a single one (!!!) has any issues. It is only my Backpack page. So, I checked, deleted and or removed via a reinstall any possible interfering settings like cookies, sessions etc.

I tried to access my page on various other systems and all work aside from a Vista 64bit Notebook (17’‘) which shows the same thing I’m seeing.

Closing thoughts:
a) Maybe I’ve missed some deeply hidden setting on various machines that show the problem? (Highly unlikely)?
b) Maybe Windows updates of the recent 10 to 12 days (there have been quite a few) have thrown a “wrench” into the display of my Backpack page somehow?
c) I wouldn’t know how, but maybe some font-sizes have been chnaged on the Backpack end – plus various other settings – which throw certain displays into “quirks” mode? No idea.

The last thing I’m going to do is take the Backpack CSS file apart .. which is quite a collection of errors on my side. I’m getting a whole bunch of warnings (via the Web developer extension) like …

Warning: Expected end of value for property but found ‘margin’. Error in parsing value for property ‘width’. Declaration dropped.
Source File: https://asset3.backpackit.com/stylesheets/cache/all.css?1219017939
Line: 389

[... or …]

Warning: Expected ’,’ or ‘{’ but found ’@Modal’. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://asset3.backpackit.com/stylesheets/cache/all.css?1219017939
Line: 2104

[... or …]

Warning: Expected ’,’ or ‘{’ but found ’@Modal’. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://asset3.backpackit.com/stylesheets/cache/all.css?1219017939
Line: 2104

[... etc. ...]

which hint at various errors, ... in the asset cache directory?

I’m not sure if the problem might be there because we all know that it takes quite a few bug fixes to make a site like Backpack behave across all browsers, and maybe those warnings are just FF acting up because of those fixes, but …

So, I ain’t one bit wiser, but I’m trying.

Thanks for your input!

And … via the Web Developer extension I can see that the text that is causing the display problem is at a default 14px?
Shouldn’t it be at 12? 14px (besides the fact that I hate px values in style sheets!) seems mighty big for an average 19’’ monitor.

Addendum: But the 14 plus pixels used here in the forum are smaller than the 14px on my backpack page.

I’m giving up for now.

I solved this issue.

For anyone else out there:

This was, indeed, a font issue. I got confused because:

a) The rquired font “Lucida Grande” is not part of any software I install on my PC and therefore the pages kept defaulting to the others (verdana, sans-serif;) which are – on all systems I checked – way too large for the page and

b) the copy of this font I kept using was corrupted.

I extracted a new “lucida grande” file from a new Safari for Windows download and installed it in my Win Vista fonts directory.

Problems solved.

This problem was reproducible on many different Windows systems (especially XP), so I suspect many (first-time) users are looking at font sizes which are way too big.

This error occurred for many old-timers like me that I’ve heard from so there must have been a change in font settings for Backpack? Unfortunately, I didn’t hear back from support at all regarding this aspect of the problem so I don’t know.